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Topic: Will there be a resurgence of Movie License Games? (Read 497 times)

With the last two gen series of consoles, film (and TV) license games pretty much vanished unless it's your Pixar/DreamWorks, Lego or Super Heroes, but they were always mixed media. Shadows of Mordor did well, Star Wars goes without saying, but where is Jumanji 2? Surely people want to jump on a platform as the Rock and bash the x button the pick up a Boulder. Warner Brothers and Disney have the monopoly on movie franchise games, and you only need to look at the list of highest grossing films of 2019 and yep it's filled with WB and Disney films.

Developers can't take the risks unless it's an adaptation that can work with a specific formulae that works with the source material, they also have to make it under immense pressure to coincide with the cinema release. The PS2/GC/Xbox era had quite a few licensed games which sold well, yet often critically savanged, but games were cheaper to produce then and the Studio didn't know much about making games so just assumed the hit film would make a hit game.

Back in the spectrum/Atari and then nes/snes/Mega Drive days you'd see game adaptations of pretty much every big film release which more often than not would just use the license but the story and enemies would just be anything the devs could throw in. People are crying out for an Antiques Roadshow point and click adventure.

It's obviously financially deciding, but I yearn for the days of trash games being adapted from all of film and TV, but it's never going to happen. As motion capture and realistic textures get better I could see it applying in some cases outside of Disney and Warner Brothers properties, but I think there would have to be a successful risk taken on a John Wick game or something before it became a trend in the industry.

Make a Free Willy game but make sure to throw bats in as some enemies, every game needs bats as enemies.

There is a John Wick game - John Wick Hex. Generally I think people turn their noses up at direct adaptations of films now. It always has to be a prequel or a spin-off or something and it never launches alongside the film. I suppose now that films are finished about a week before they get to the cinema there's no way to get the game to line up at all. There were plenty of licensed games that have barely fuck all to do with the film.

What's the last great Game of the Movie? Peter Jackson's King Kong? The more recent Kong would make a great game.

I played through Lucasfilm's PC adventure game Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade before seeing the film. It was a joy to finally watch the film afterwards and see just how faithful the game had been. Weirdly, because of the order of when I had played/watched the two, it felt more like watching a faithful film adaptation of a videogame.

I imagine it’s much easier and profitable to make a licensed variation of the three types of mobile games (bejeweled, angry birds, snake 2) filled with in app purchases for 8 year olds to accidentally spunk all their parents’ money on.